As we reported in November, a hiker spotted the eagle
with the droopy wing on West Hayden Island on a Saturday afternoon and called
the care center. Bob Sallinger, Audubon's conservation manager, and his son,
Peter, drove to the island, captured the bird and took her to the care center,
where veterinarian Deb Sheaffer examined it.

An X-ray didn't show any broken bones, though it
did detect a BB in her chest muscle, despite the fact that federal law
prohibits shooting eagles and other birds of prey; penalties can include jail
time.

Sheaffer suspected a soft-tissue injury to the
wing or a hairline fracture, so a few weeks later, she took the eagle to VCA
Rock Creek Veterinary Hospital. The hospital, at no charge, offered use of its
digital X-ray technology, which would give a far more detailed picture of the
bird's wing structure.

After the digital X-ray, Jennifer Tepavich, a
radiologist with VCA Northwest Veterinary Specialists in Clackamas offered to
perform a CT scan on the eagle. Interestingly, the scan didn't spot a problem
in the injured wing, but did detect an old, healed injury in the wing that's
now healthy.

"Healing, just like in people, takes a long
time," Sheaffer said Thursday in a telephone interview from the care center,
where the eagle remains. "Her wing injury appears to be getting better, but
it's a very slow process."

Sheaffer's best guess is that the bird's wing has
nerve damage, which can be particularly slow to heal.

"If she doesn't continue to get better, we'll
probably have an MRI done," Sheaffer said, "but we're hoping we don't have to
do that due to the hours-long anesthesia that would require. It's really sad
because we had hopes of getting her out soon."

So for now, the eagle exercises a bit in her
flight cage, where she feasts on a diet of salmon, with the occasional mouse or
rat thrown in for variety.

"She is such a tough bird," Sheaffer said. "We
have so many people rooting for her."